Oops- wrong place to post!

Setanta have gone into administration, and have stopped broadcasting apparently, according to the BBC…

gr8 resrch bro

Zohaib, that’s a serious comment!

I totally agree – I’d definitely rather have David Villa around then have Adebayor. The two players are in completely different leagues. The amount of goals I’ve seen Villa create out of nothing. His brain works so fast. But he’ll cost in the region of £30m which is probably double what we will get for selling Adebayor, but we do have £14m in the bank, so could be done, but a player like Vela could well be just as good.

Which leads me onto an issue – Why didn’t we see more of Vela this season? Vela looked awesome against pretty much every team he has played against. Totally agree about the strength thing too dude.

In the attacking mould, three players – Eduardo, Vela and Van Persie really give me hope that we’re covered in that area.

I don’t mind going on and on because it’s a very healthy debate, and you’re raising some very valid points. I’d be a stubborn fool not to agree with some of them, but it’s clear we disagree over some points. That’s fine, no harm in that.

I’m wondering what’ll happen if Villa becomes available at a decent price. Obviously that’s a big ask and most top clubs will be wanting to buy him, making our chances quite slim, but I’m talking about IF it comes to the point where he wants to come to Arsenal over anywhere else (maybe Real Madrid sign Kaka and Ronaldo and they either don’t have the money for Villa (unlikely) or whether Villa feels he won’t be a starter (unlikely) ), will we then not want to buy him because he’s not a like for like replacement for Adebayor ? I don’t think so. I hope not !

I’ve been wanting to comment about the twitter update on Valencia maybe selling Villa, Silva, and Mata (haven’t learnt how it works yet). And I want Villa for Adebayor. It doesn’t bother me that he’s not tall enough. He’s a great striker. Adebayor rarely creates chances for himself. He relies on others to create them for him. With Villa you don’t get such problems.

I also feel a lot has to do with how teams defend against us. And yes, if teams put 10 men behind the ball then even Ronaldo, Kaka, Messi, Villa, Torres etc will have problems creating chances and scoring goals but what I know is that Barcelona won against a Chelsea side who adopted to similar tactics and that Barcelona created tons of chances against a ManUtd side who did almost the same after their first 10 mins of glory. And in the league, ManUtd has also had to deal with the same teams who put 10 men behind the ball, yet for them it’s much easier to deal with those situations. I ask myself why that is, and I think it may have something to do with the fact that we like to take our time building up an attack. And frankly, we’re too slow. It needs to be done much much quicker. We’re also a young side so maybe it makes sense that we’re a bit naive and not intelligent enough to understand how to create the space in between those 10 defenders. But the biggest difference is that we are too slow in attack. The countless side passes and fullback-overlap predictability needs to stop. There’s a purpose in ManUtd’s forward play, (like we used to have 5 years ago), unlike us who play competitive football as if it were a training ground routine. It’s almost like we park our bus in the opponents half, instead of our own. And surprise surprise, that’s just as annoying ! I think the only reason we’ve managed to score the amount of goals ManUtd has is because they had major problems with their strikers. Rooney’s being played out of position as a left winger (I wonder if that has effectively killed his striking abilities), Berbatov’s become a support striker, and they’ve treated Tevez like he’s some insignificant amateur. So again, Wenger’s used some incomplete, and inconclusive stats to cover the cracks in this team, probably to get more time and to get the fans to support the team no matter what. And that’s my issue with him. Why can’t he just tell it like it is. Why isn’t he brave enough to stand up and accept some of the criticism. And another point – he’ll have to stop standing up for his players every single time, otherwise they’ll never learn to stand up for themselves and everybody will continue to think of them as ‘babies’ and bully them around !

*Plus you CANT blame him*

Hmmm, we both keep going on again and again about this dont we lol. Not sure about a few things there mate.

Firstly about Ade not being a match winner, when he has actually won games for us before. When we played West Ham away, it was 0-0 at the 60 mins, West Ham parked the bus and were going for the draw. Ade came on for Bendtner, scores a goal and sets up another and we win the game 2-0. He was only on the pitch for 30 mins. Also, both his goals against Villareal (hone and away) helped us through to the Champions League Semi’s.

Now, I kind of agree with you in one respect, because these kind or performances haven’t been regular this season. But it may be a little harsh too also because the guy has actually shown that he can help us win games. Plus, you can blame him or any of our other players for the imbalance in the squad, which Wenger admitted was our downfall this season. We basically didn’t replace the outgoing players enough. Lets say for arguments sake Ade stays on to play next season and Wenger buys a centrback and defending midfielder. Ade, as well as a few other players, will have a much better season for it because all the posotions are filled with players who are strong there. Thats how football tends to work, its a team game.

Also, I do disagree about Tevez and Martins being able to play as lone strikers. As good as they are, I’ve only ever seen them play 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, but never up front on their own in a 4-5-1 formation. They’ve always been in supporting roles, either as attacking midfielder or support striker, and had lots of support around them on the pitch. I don’t think anyone thats managed them would say that lone striker is the position either. Whereas Ade played quite a few games up front by himself, which is a big ask for any player.

Take Rooney as another example. The guy is quality, there’s no denying that, yet whenever he’s played as a lone striker for England, it’s like he isn’t even on the pitch. The guy isn’t nearly as effective alone with no support around him. Yet take Heskey, a player who has had a lot of criticism over the years, and he thrives playing upfront. Torres and Henry are different to these guys because they’re both over 6ft, big in stature yet technically gifted, so you have every type of striker in one package. Lone strikers need to be commanding, and when playing against at least two centrebacks and a keeper, most of whom are 6ft and over, size is a requirement for a lone striker. Thats why today I’m not surprised to hear we’ve been linked with this Bosnian player, Edin Dzeko, as he’s a 6f 3 1/2 inch striker, which as mentioned before is the suitable type of player stature wise to replace Ade.

I’ve got a feeling we could keep going on and on about this all summer mate lol. But its always good! Cheers.

Yemi, if it really was 13 million last year and if he hasn’t signed an extension, he shouldn’t cost 12 million (that was a figure I just came up with as an estimate). Should be around 8 million maybe.

Agree with your assessment of Martins and Yakubu. Cheers.

Pete, basically, Ade is not a match-winner. His height SHOULD make him a dangerous striker, but let’s be honest, nobody’s really scared of him. I’m sure that was merely gamesmanship by Terry. He’d want us to think that the top defenders are scared of Ade, so that we keep him and not go for someone that would really cause them problems. And uptil now you’ve only managed to come up with height. What else does he have ? If that’s really all he has, and he’s not very good at it either, he’s a pretty shit striker by anybody’s standards.

As much as I hate Drogba, he’s what a real striker plays like (bar his diving and tantrums). Every defender has a tough time against him. He is someone who can play the lone-striker role, well enough to win a match on his own even with a relatively weaker midfield. Then there’s Torres – someone who can play the lone-striker role too, even though he’s not known for his physical, bullying strength, in fact he goes down a bit too easily. Yet he’s someone who defenders fear. He’s also someone who is a match-winner on his own and doesn’t need a relatively strong midfield to get him to look good. Same for Ronaldo, Messi, Kaka, Henry, Villa, etc etc.
Is Ade even half as good as any of them ? Not a chance, mate.

I don’t even remember when he had fantastic work-rate. And I don’t think I can call him a scorer of great goals just because he got 2 fancy goals. And he’s not even a great goalscorer. VanPersie maybe you could call a scorer of great goals because he’s scored many more of them but he’s not a great goalscorer yet.

What I do remember about Ade is that we had a bloody strong midfield with Fabregas, Rosicky, Hleb and Flamini, which is why he got 30 goals. Give any average striker that strong a midfield and he’ll score plenty of goals. Let’s not fool ourselves because he managed to score 30 goals in one season. Numbers don’t tell you everything. Just as the number of goals a striker has not scored, is significant, the number of goals he has scored can be insignificant, in some cases.

Now your other point about how you think a small man can’t make a good lone-striker. I hugely disagree with this. Look at the entire Argentinean team. Tevez, Aguerro, Messi. I don’t think they’re tall lads. But they are some of the best strikers in the world. You don’t have to be tall to be good. Another point I want to make clear is, some people use the wrong words. Sometimes what people mean is ‘strong’ instead of ‘tall’ but they interchange between the two as if they were the same word. This is incorrect. You don’t have to be tall to be strong. Also, not all defenders have to be tall (Clicy, Evra, Cole) just like not all holding midfield players have to be tall (Mascherano).

There are strikers like Forlan, Villa, Tevez, Torres, Messi, Eduardo, etc who are not huge, but they are dangerous in any position or formation, whether a lone-striker or 2 strikers or 3 strikers. This leads me to my next point. First, a great striker will be able to play in any formation. And second, why do we need the lone-striker role so badly ? Maybe because we had a pathetic midfield, so Wenger had to play that way to get the second striker to cover in midfield. Yes, that hampered our attacking play partly. But he’s said we need a DM and CB, and chances are we might get at least one of the two. So then there’ll be less need for a lone-striker role.

I think you’re only comparing the strikers that we have in our squad, and obviously Ade’s one of the two, tallest strikers we have, so you’d put him at lone-striker before the other. But what you need to be doing is, compare him to other strikers who have played the role, and then you’ll see how far down the order he is. He’s weak anywhere on the pitch. Martins on the other hand, can play the lone-striker role as well as other roles. And because he’s more talented, chances are he’ll be better there than Ade. But like I said, we don’t need someone specially for the lone-striker role. I also believe that we shouldn’t be playing a lone-striker with the strikers we have. Either a 4 – 4 – 2 or a 4 – 3 – 3 is a better option.

I do agree with your point about replacing like for like, but again, either we play the long ball game properly, which means the striker should be in the box when the cross is played, or we forget about that method of playing and concentrate on what we do well, and that doesn’t include a tall striker. We play like Barcelona, do they have a tall striker ? No, because they don’t need one.

Regarding Ade’s height – its a useful tool because it has caused problems for opposition in past games. We have a lot of strikers, but only he and Bendtner are capable of playing the lone striker role, and in order to play upfront alone you need to be a big lads. It’s a fact. Thats partly what makes the likes of Carew and Drogba such dangerous opponants. If Drogba was a smaller player, it wouldn’t make him less talented, but he’d have to play a different role than his usual lone striker, simply because you come against defenders who tend to be big opponants. Same goes for Ade or anyone replacing him. Martins is a second striker/attacking midfielder, we have planty of players in those positions, yet hardly any who play in defensive midfield. So any talk of players being signed should be in our weakest positions, not our stongest. Wenger has already stated that he wont sell Ade, so it’s kind of a redundant discussion.

Lone strikers/leading strikers spearhead attacks and so need to physically be able to match the defending opposition, to contend for headers, cause problems etc. To quote John Terry of all peple about Ade, he once said “he’s one of the most difficult players I’ve defended against in the league”. This is partly due to Ade being a big lad. With that in mind, I disagree that Vela or Martins are physically stronger than Ade. Don’t get me wrong, they may be strong also, but they’re different types of attacking players and wouldn’t cause the same kind of problems a bigger player would. But while we’re on the subject, I dont think they’re the type of smaller player built in the same way as Tevez is, I think thats pretty obvious. Anyway, my main point is if you sell a physically big player like Ade, then you have to replace them with a similarly big player who can play in the role they play, otherwise all you have are second strikers and besides Bendtner no one capable of playing lone striker. Replace like for like. If Ade is sold (even though he probably wont be), a John Carew or a Santa Cruz type of player would be better suited to replacing him than a Martins type of player. The only time to consider the signing of a player like Martins is if one of the second strikers left, like Vela, Arshavin, or RvP. But you’re talking about selling and replacing a lone striker like Ade, not any of those guys.

Secondly, the team was imbalanced last season, Wenger has said even said it, and the team as a whole had to take on more defencive duties when not in posession of the ball. You’ve got a point in that it probably forced us to sit behind the ball at times when we’d otherwise do differently, though sitting behind the ball isn’t something I’d accuse Arsenal of doing much of. If they did, then we’d not have conceded as many goals as we did. Defence starts in midfield, not at the backline. If no one is protecting the back four, then it doesnt matter how good the defender is, they’re vulnerable. The protection infront of our back four wasn’t solid enough for the entire season. We started the season off badly and got better as Song and Denilson improved. Our results say the second half of out season was better that the first, which coinsides with the improvement o the players in the DM position.

Anyway, its good debating with you man! Cheers